sboy79

I was actually able to harvest the bracket from the ZX so I'm hoping to reuse that-- was planning on riveting it in.

This is what I needed to hear. Thank you!

Hey all! I'm slowly working through the auto to five speed swap right now and am ready to route the hard line. I have a hard line from the parts car (1981 ZX) that I was planning on using but seeing how complicated the routing is, I want to make sure before I start that this will work. I'm totally fine buying a prebent line for the 77 if it doesn't. Has anyone done this successfully? Should I just bite the bullet and buy the line made for the car? Thanks in advance!

Hey all, There's some Watanabe 15x6.5 wheels on my local Facebook marketplace. The current owner doesn't know the offset and the wheels have been repainted so the original ID stickers are long gone. Do any of the casting or stamped marks on the hub side indicate offset? If all else fails I'll just go measure them but I'm hoping maybe one of you experts can ID them from the pic.

There it is!! Thanks!!

My brake light is on and I’ve disconnected the parking brake switch. Based on the service manual the proportioning valve switch must be on but I can’t for the life of me see an electrical connection to it. What am I missing here? It’s the valve on the firewall with the four hard brake lines right? Driving me nuts!

Does anyone know of a shop rebuilding 5 speeds in the PNW? Close to Portland is preferred, but am willing to drive if there's someone who has a ton of specific experience with Datsun stuff. Thanks in advance!

Yeah that’s the plan. They can do some pretty cool tinted clear finishes. Usually stripping/cleaning is included too.

View Advert Wanted: 280 wiper linkage (1977) Hey all. I've got frozen wiper linkage pivots and am hoping to source some functional ones. Either the entire linkage assembly or just the pivots would great. I was able to free both of mine, but broke the casting of the pivot on one. It's still functional but I would like to replace it. Note: Pic is not the exact part but you get the idea Thanks in advance for the help! Advertiser sboy79 Date 01/04/2024 Price Category Parts Wanted Year 1977 Model 280z  

Thought this question would be best answered by the forum. I'm working on my 1977 280z and hoping to learn a little more about the wheels. My grandma purchased the car new in the Seattle area in 1977 and the car came with gold painted wheels from the dealer (at least I'm 90% sure that's the case). The gold paint (or tinted clear???) was chipping off so my uncle who owned the car before me had them stripped and polished. I'd like to restore them to the original gold but I can't find any pictures or information on the wheels as any other color than the black/polished combo. I'm attaching a picture of the wheel (not mine but one I found on the net) and a pic of an old ebay ad that shows one gold wheel that most closely looks like how I remember them before being stripped. I also have one picture of the car with the wheels before they were stripped. Did these wheels come painted gold from the factory? Is this gold paint or gold tinted clear-coat? Have you guys seen/owned these wheels and do you have pictures? I'm not sure yet if I want to repaint the original wheels gold or buy modern wheels and just try to match the color as closely as possible as an homage to the originals.

Yeah they cleaned up nicely. Either a coat of clear or even some wax spray. This was just a quick and dirty blasting-- I would probably need to do a little better job blasting and then solvent clean them really well to get a good surface for paint.

Well I blasted them and they look pretty good raw so I think I'll leave them like this. I'm attaching some before/after pics. Thanks for the quick replies everyone! I left piston/seals in place so I didn't have to mask the bores. I'll replace all that stuff tonight when I rebuild.

I'm rebuilding my 77 280z brake calipers and plan on blasting and painting them. What was the original color? I'm seeing both silver (or raw casting??) and black when doing a google image search. It's not a huge deal, but I figure I'll try to make them look original if possible.

Definitely go through all the troubleshooting and EFI bible stuff, but if you are consistently lean, the 1K potentiometer trick will richen it up 1-2 AFR. Not sure if that's just a band aid or permanent solution but it works. I'm beginning to think having a wide-band oxygen sensor just shows you how primitive the EFI system is-- you may not even notice how much the AFR swings without the gauge and drivability could be fine. We might just have too much information! Ignorance is bliss and if the car drives well and the spark plugs look good, maybe the swings you see on the wide band don't matter at all. However based on my experience here I'm definitely moving to a megasquirt setup. I think you miss most of the benefits of EFI without a closed loop (oxygen sensor) system. The EFI system on the early non-o2 sensor cars is making lots of assumptions. I'm not a carb or EFI purist, but I'm fairly certain a well tuned carb does a better job of metering fuel than the early EFI but the EFI does solve a bunch of livability problems especially with cars that sit around with ethanol gas for long periods of time. This opinion is obviously subjective and if I had my EFI running in tip top shape maybe I'd feel differently. Carb technology was perfected by the time of the 280z but these early EFI systems are really primitive in the world of modern EFI. Edit: Also take my opinion with a grain of salt. I'm 100% sure my AFM was messed with before I got the car so I was working with a bad baseline. In retrospect, knowing that, I should have bought a rebuild and calibrated AFM so I could assume that's not a problem. Would have saved me alot of headache I think

No. The headers I inherited have the provision but the the bung is so far away from where it should be I can’t connect the tube from the intake manifold so I have it blocked off.

Except when you want it real lean for emissions testing. That screw wouldn’t get it lean enough. There’s a bunch more troubleshooting needed which is why it will be parked for a while. A passing emissions test makes it infinitely easier to transfer out of state titles in Oregon. Now that I’ve got that paperwork I’m not under a time crunch for getting the rest of the EFI sorted

It still goes lean on partial throttle so I’m parking it until I figure that out. After the test I installed the temp sensor potentiometer and set it back to slightly rich for the drive home. Honestly leaning towards a modern fuel injection system the deeper I get into this one.

Hey all! Quick update-- I passed the emissions test on the second try. Barely failed the first then leaned out the air flow meter and passed with flying colors on the second test. If you are having problems with your EFI system or emissions testing I HIGHLY encourage installing a wideband O2 sensor. You are just guessing without it. I found it incredibly useful all along this journey. Best $200 I've spent on the car yet. Thanks for all your help! Now onto the 5 speed swap . . .

Zed you are right. Just checked and the requirements for 1977 vehicles 300 ppm hc and less than 2.5% CO AT IDLE

Yes I'm unclear on this as well. I believe Oregon just checks for a catalytic converter (which my car wasn't equipped with) and sticks the sniffer in the exhaust. I'm don't think the average DEQ technician could tell aftermarket from stock EFI but I could be wrong I think this is unusual as well. I have an actual smoke tester and when I run it for five minutes (the max before it switches off to not overheat) I eventually see smoke coming out of the intake opening by the right headlight and a TINY bit from the AFM flapper door pivot shaft. If I advance the ignition to 15 BTDC the idle vac comes up to the 17-18 range. I may start disconnecting and capping vacuum sources slowly and see if I'm missing something. I both increased and decreased the flap tension and it doesn't seem to do a whole lot. The 1K potentiometer inline with the temp sensor is definitely working though. Could I just be WAY off on the spring tension and need to decrease it significantly? I was right on the tension called out by the beer can test which is the only reference I've found so far.

Before I start here this is what I've done so far to my 1977 Federal 280z EFI: All EFI Bible troubleshooting-- Everything tests normal Smoke test-- no vacuum leaks, engine is a steady 16 or so on the vacuum gauge at idle Fuel pressure with vacuum line off regulator is 32-34 psi (my gauge isn't super precise) Timing at 10 BTC Compression 150 psi across all six cylinders New fuel injectors and fuel filters (I have an additional inline filter before the fuel pump) Generally, the car runs great. I have a wide band oxygen sensor and display hooked up and right now the idle is right at 13.5 AFR. At any throttle opening above 20% under heavy acceleration I also see about 13.5-14 AFR. Unfortunately I read about 16-17 AFR when cruising at a constant speed or slight acceleration with the throttle just barely cracked. So it seems like I run lean in the zone between the two throttle switch positions (area between idle switched closed and partial open throttle switch closed and I'm not sure I'll be able to pass emissions running that lean during the 2000 steady RPM portion of the test. Like I said in a previous post, this car has been in the family since new and I know previous owner (my uncle) did crack open the AFM and make adjustments. It does pass all the checks however (tested at the ECU connector). I performed the Atlantic Z page beer can spring calibration and it did help a bit-- I ended up increasing the spring tension by maybe four teeth. So I'm stuck. It seems like my air flow meter is bad or misadjusted. Is there anything else I'm missing? I'm also contemplating upgrading to the Godzilla megasquirt system as some of these old EFI parts are becoming unobtanium but I'm not ready to give up yet. Any further tests I should do? I feel like I've exhausted everything I've seen on the forums. Thanks in advance for the help!

Alright update #2-- I took the stepped washers to work and milled another 1/16" off the thickness and reinstalled/torqued them onto the manifolds. Performed a smoke test and NO LEAKS! In fact the only visible smoke was coming out of the intake entrance near the passenger headlight and after 5 minutes of "smoking" there was the tiniest bit coming out from under the air meter under the plastic cover. I'll do the yogurt cup test next but I'm definitely sealed up enough to dial in the idle speed and idle/air mixture and maybe even pass emissions. I also want to experiment with the 1k pot on the coolant temp circuit.

Do you have the Downpipe as well?

Portland, OR. I’m using the engine and drivetrain and a handful of parts Zed mentioned earlier in the post. Happy to trade. What do you need? Also, I’m not seven feet tall. I’m sitting on a bucket in this pic 😎

My car is a 77 Federal 280z so no oxygen sensor was on it at all. The wideband is just to help me troubleshoot. I'll plug the hole when I'm done. Did not realize this. The EGR port is definitely in a different place as the EGR tube is different. Seriously considering going to the stock manifold if I can't get this header to seal 100% with another shave of the stepped washers. Thanks for the detailed post! Everything I've seen prior is "drivetrain is the same, everything else is different" between a Z and ZX. This helps me prioritize pulling parts.